


you made a fool of me (tell me why)

by youngerdrgrey



Category: Queen Sugar (TV)
Genre: 30 x 31 Writing Challenge, Gen, Season/Series 02, post-2x06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 10:32:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11757993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngerdrgrey/pseuds/youngerdrgrey
Summary: Nova says, “You know what, you gon’ stop putting me in the middle of you and your mama.” But that’s not all she and Micah need to talk about apparently.written forday 26 of 30 x 31 challenge;prompt:song lyric as a title





	you made a fool of me (tell me why)

**Author's Note:**

> Do not read if you haven't seen through to at least 2x06. Beyond that, time is a construct, and it's whatever.

 

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Nova coils the little curls on the top of Micah’s head. Her locs hang down around the both of them as he smiles up at her. Bats his endless eyelashes and says, “They’d be a great way to show that I’m growing, don’t you think? I could legitimately watch them grow along with me. Don’t you want that for me?”

“Of course.” Nova’s never spent so much time with a child as she does with Micah. She loves Blue, no question in that, but she and Micah click real well as people. He is definitely the best parts of Charley and still so much more. But he’s also getting a little too bold after his scare at the police station. He makes a lot of decisions on his own, ducks out to spend time with Davis, and relies on mostly looks and text messages to convey everything to the rest of the family. As glad as she is that he’s at least spending time with her the way he used to, she’s not about to get chewed out by Charley for anything.

Micah nods. “So I say just start ‘em. Loc me up!”

“First of all,” and Nova tilts his eager head back down so he has to look right into her eyes, “your hair locks on its own. You guide it to be what you want it to be, but it’s the hair that makes all the decisions.” Her own locs had a mind of their own throughout the beginning of this. Sprouting and facing every which way, refusing to grow any longer for so long that she was convinced she’d have the same length locs for the whole of her life, but eventually, they found themselves, and she found herself too. “You’ve got to really want this, Micah. It can’t just be a challenge, or you won’t stick it out.”

“I get that. I want to do this,” he tells her.

“Then talk to your mama.”

He groans. “It’s my head!”

“And all of that head came out of Charley.” She talks over his next groan. “No, nope, we are not playing this.”

He turns then, tugging out of her hold so he can stare up at her from the floor and right side up. He narrows his eyes like he wants to be serious. It’d probably go over better if she weren’t sitting so comfy on the couch above him. If she couldn’t see the stark difference between the coiling, growing bits of his hair and the parts they hadn’t played with yet.

“Shouldn’t kids have autonomy? Agency! Agency is so important.”

“Define agency.”

He barely hesitates. “It’s just the right to do what you want with your body. It’s not my mom’s, or-or anyone else’s, it’s mine. So it’s not her choice what I do with it. And I’m not trying to get weird tattoos, or do anything that’s even technically permanent. Just because I start my hair like this doesn’t mean I’ll keep it that way forever. I could give up!”

He could. But it’s a talk he should have with Charley. Not Nova. His mom, not the aunt he pulls into everything. Speaking of which— 

“You know what, you gon’ stop putting me in the middle of you and her. You ain’t slick. You keep getting caught, and she keep taking it out on me.” Calling Nova squawking about boundaries and disrespect, going off on Nova’s lifestyle, all of that just because Micah keeps going places without letting anybody know.

“Isn’t it her problem for snapping at you?”

Nova cocks her head to the side. “So it’s her problem you skipped school? And therapy? And whatever comes next?"

His eyes drop down to the couch cushions. “Not exactly. She just… makes such a big deal out of everything. Like the smallest stuff to her is huge. How is she gonna handle…” He picks at a loose string on the couch.

“Handle what?” Micah tugs at that string instead of answering. “Micah? What else does she have to handle?”

His shoulders lift all the way to his ears when he shrugs. “I dunno. Anything big. Anything….” He drops the string. “Like, on my birthday.” When he went to holding. “She is _so_ tiny. You know that? Like, I’m bigger than she is. And when they let me out, and she ran to me, it was like she was shaking more than even I was, and if she’s shaking that bad off of nothing, then she can’t do anything else. She can’t take it.”

“Hey.” He’s shaking now. Tremors in his arms and his breathing erratic. He clenches his jaw the second his words end to hold himself together. Nova takes that jaw in her right hand. Kneads along the bone with her thumb even as his cheeks quake. “Hey, we all know your mama’s tiny. She’s the smallest one in this family, but if you think that’s gonna stop her for even a second? Then you don’t really know her.” Charley fought Davis in front of a national audience, middle of the court. She stormed right into the Landrys’ office after they threatened Blue. She wouldn’t so much as hesitate if someone did something to Micah. He has to know that, right?

Or is knowing that the problem? Is that it? He’s not as scared about himself as he is what it’ll do to her?

Nova tries again. “You don’t have to take care of her. You know that, right?”

He shrugs again, smaller this time. “Somebody has to.” 

“I’ve got her.” Nova’s other hand joins the first one so she can cup his face. Lift it back to hers. “Remember when the mill opened? I brought her right out of that and over to the side.” Nova took off her headwrap and wrapped it around her sister’s hands. Cleaned off the mulch with a piece of herself and held her sister until they could see outside of that moment. Beyond the breakdown and the promises and the possibilities that they could never be all that their daddy wanted them to be. “I’ve got her.” They could be even more than that. And Micah could be more than Charley ever even dreamed of hoping for. “The only person you need to worry about is _you_. That’s where the growth starts.”

He gives a watery sort of chuckle. “Hair growth?”

She could smother him. Yanks him in for a tight hug that has him nearly pulling her off the couch. She’s gotta grumble her response, keep her street credibility, soften a bit of her own aching in a false gruffness. “Nah, boy, not until you talk to her.”

He furrows deeper into the hug. She slips the rest of the way to the ground. Her top gets a little wet, but she doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t mention that his hair’s too dry and too high up to leave marks like that on her. She does get a hand free from him though, brushes out the little coils until his hair’s back to normal. Hopes that one day the rest of him’ll be back too.

.

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**Author's Note:**

> What y’all think of this one? It started light enough, but Micah’s got a lot he wants to dance around actually facing at this point. We’re getting there though. Slowly but surely.
> 
> anyways, talk to me.


End file.
